The Choice of the One
by Nhaz
Summary: Anakin Skywalker realizes he's been deceived and chooses to help Mace Windu against Palpatine, avoiding his fall to the Dark Side. But Darth Sidious is more than meets the eye and he's far from beaten. In a galaxy ruled by the Sith, Anakin Skywalker fights beside those he cares about to save everything they hold dear, while straddling the edge between the Dark and the Light Side...


Darth Sidious, the root of all evil in the galaxy, was fighting Mace Windu. Master Windu, ever a thorn in Anakin's side, was trying to kill Palpatine, his beloved mentor. Never before had Anakin felt so lost, not knowing what to do. The entire galaxy had stopped, as though waiting for him to choose between right and wrong, and when it all felt wrong, he could no longer see if there was a right thing to do.

 _Search your feelings_ , the old man had said. So now Anakin just did that. Detaching himself from the Jedi and the Sith locked in what seemed an eternal struggle in front of him, he looked inward, and there was one thing his feelings were all leading to.

 _Padmé._

Queen Padmé Amidala, whom he'd first met after she had barely escaped a blockade by the Trade Federation, who had tried to shoot her down on Darth Sidious' orders.

Senator Padmé Amidala, who had survived two assassination attempts in a single day, and only a few days later had been sentenced to be executed, along with him and Obi-Wan, all on Dooku's orders.

But in the end Dooku had been a mere pawn himself. His life had ended at Anakin's hands, as he was being urged on by Dooku's own master. The Sith Lord, Darth Sidious. Or, by his own admission, the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, Sheev Palpatine. It all fit so perfectly now, and Anakin felt anger pool inside him at his own blindness. Whether it was him and everyone else being so gullible, or, as it occurred to him now, Palpatine using the Force all along, it didn't matter. Hand on his saber, Anakin glared at the Chancellor.

"I have the power to save the one you love", Palpatine chose to croak just then, reminding him of the one thing that could have saved his life if left unsaid. "You must choose!"

 _You certainly had the power to order her dead no less than four times_ , Anakin only had time to think as his body moved on its own accord, fueled by rage. He shoved Windu aside and, bellowing a mad cry, ignited his lightsaber and swung.

Only when he missed and the blade hit the floor, burning through it, did Anakin realize that the Sith lord had been holding back. The lightning blinded him as it bit into his face, even as he blocked most of it. Half of his world went dark and the other half was set alight.

A whirl of purple entered his vision as Windu rejoined the fray and tried to deflect the lightning as he had done before. Only now Anakin knew that Sidious was no longer holding back. The old man let out a deafening, primal howl which shook the room, and Anakin could almost see the wave of darkness knocking him and Windu on their backs.

"So this is what you choose, young Jedi." what came out of Palpatine's mouth was nothing like the kind, grandfatherly voice Anakin knew, it was the cold rasp dripping with poison in which he had urged him to kill Dooku.

"If you will not bow to the Dark Side", the Sith continued with contempt, the lightning still pouring out of his fingers effortlessly, "you and every other Jedi will die."

 _Stretch out with your feelings_ , he could hear Obi-Wan saying. Jedi and Sith were perhaps not so different after all. Well, there was one single feeling within him right now. He left his prosthetic hand clutching the saber, blocking what he could, and with the left he reached for Sidious with all his wrath, to snuff life out of the Sith lord once and for all. Only one thing mattered now. He had to kill Darth Sidious.

His fingers contracted and through the red veil engulfing his one good eye, Anakin could finally see Sidious falter and gasp for breath under the attack of both Jedi. With a final push through the Force, the Sith lord ran to the hallway and, knocking Mace Windu aside. Anakin absent-mindedly helped the Jedi master on his feet and both raced after the unnaturally fast old man, sabers ablaze.

"Senator Amidala", the loathsome voice reached his ears. What Sidious was saying only made its way to Anakin's brain with a delay. _Arrest Senator Amidala for her dissent._

"I'LL KILL YOU!" The words thundered along the corridor and Anakin was a storm, hurling himself after Sidious and to the landing pad. The blue blade buzzed through the air as it rose to meet the blue bolts. There was a whir and a blur of red showed Anakin that his enemy had his saber in his hand, pulled from wherever in the city it had fallen out the window. And yet something was wrong. Sidious wasn't attacking. It took him a second which felt like an eternity to realize that the saber was blocking red lightning and that it was shooting from Anakin's own fingertips. The chaotic, swirling arcs bounced off the perfectly straight energy blades, order and chaos, light and dark wove into a cosmic dance until Sidious broke it with a rabid slash, snarling. Anakin could see Windu running to him, calling for backup. Anakin groaned. There was no time for backup. Sidious had to die, now.

Palpatine tried to lose him, knowing full well that not even he could match Anakin Skywalker's piloting skills. Through back alleys, tunnels, foundries, traffic jams and pits the chase continued, but Anakin had won the Boonta Eve as a child and not even the most powerful Sith could evade him for long. He finally gained on Sidious, reaching through the Force to choke him again.

The thought proved to be distracting, as Anakin himself was forced to evade something a split second after. A blaster bolt. Another one, and another, and then he had to draw his saber to deflect the barrage coming from an entire battalion of Coruscant guards. Anakin curled his lip as he sent the blasts into their own speeders. Their deaths were on Sidious, as was everything else. As more and more swarmed over him and he continued to shoot them down, his speeder zoomed past skyscrapers, through holoboards from which Palpatine's still unblemished face cast the kindly look which Anakin now loathed, above the city, until he could finally spot the Sith lord flying toward the Senate in full view of Coruscan't elite that was just beginning to arrive, apparently called in by the Chancellor himself.

 _That will probably get me killed_ , Anakin had time to think as he jumped into his speeder and set it on autopilot, homing in on Sidious. He climbed over his speeder's dashboard and made a leap ready to destroy the Sith once and for all. As he hung in the air, his hand swinging back to slash through the lightning and through Sidious, he took in the disfigured, leering old face, the eyes opening wide in fear and then narrowing with a fury that matched Anakin's own.

It was all over in a great wall of angry, glowing red which cast itself around him with a vengeful, demonic roar. Pain shot through him like never before, and as it subsided from everywhere but his limbs, he could hear the Sith's triumphant cackle mix with Windu calling his name, the sizzling of seared flesh, and the air swooshing in his ears. Then the world spun and in his mind there was one word, one image, one feeling.

 _Padmé_.


End file.
